Big Thief and Little Thief

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 49, 5 December 1907, Page 10

Big Thief and Little Thief

Big thieving is sometimes_ glossed over as ' diigh finance ' or ' high policy 1 ' ;-°tis the petty .thief that gqts the handcuffs and--, the prison-cell.- ' .Great news ! ' saicL one friend on 'Change -to .another; ' just~ heard that" Murwell has' got off clear- with £5000 of the 1 " Corporation" money '. ' Well, well ! Clever fellow ! And what a joke, to.o ! / YoiTlmow I have a grudge against- that ■Corporation over that rating case I lost. ' Do -you remember that presentation umbrella of yours ? Well, ■ he's got off wi.th that, too '. ' The mean scoundrel ! ' This sort of judgment is neither new nor very unusual. . But " N ' - ■""■"" ' The Ten Commandments will not' budge, " And stealing will continue stealing,' no matter with what drapery of fair phrases it may be tricked out ; no matter by whom it -may be perpetrated, whether- by Bill Sikes tlwffourglar, or by the bigger corporation of official thieves -that in Prance have been pilfering the wardrobes of ' the Sisters of - Charity,' ' pinching ' monastic pot's and pans, arid ' converting:'-/ churches, semdnaries, clergy residences, convents, etc., on 'a viast scale to secular »uses. * • To adapt a'"well-worn line of Swift, the big thief ' Has smaller thieves that on him prey, And these Lave smaller still to bite 'em, • And so proceed ad inflnitum '. s

- In France, the big thieves— that is the Government — have a horde of . smaller thieves ( liquidators, lawyers, magsmen, and art dealers) to bite into the_profits of the Great Pillage. Says the ' Catholic Times 'of October 18 :— ■ - -

' There has been cfuife" a brisk trade carried on among buyers and sellers tof objects of ecclesiastical art. To supply, the , trade, methods were, adopted that seem to be very far from honest, and so the French police have had occasion to inquire into the doings of a "M. Antoine Thomas, who confesses., to being the : author of a number of sacrilegious thefts, or at least thefts which would have been called sacrilegious had not the State already stolen from the Church the very things which M." Thomas stole from the State. Our contemporary the "Academy," so spicy of late in its editorial comments, puts the case thus : " Altogether M. Antoine Thomas seems to furnish a very bright example of the results of the anti-Christian movement carried- on b} r ' the French Government.- The State, acting in obedience to ' the will of the people ', steals the property of the Church, and now the engaging M. Thomas steals it from the 'State, and we shall witness the spectacle of a gang of thieves trying a; thief for stealing a stolen object." The situation is Gilbertian, but we fear that M. Thomas-, has made a mistake -in imagining that" he -could do in his individual, what" the" State had done in its collective, capacity. A man who steals from the State is a thief ; a- State wmch. '"conveys" from the Church is a 'benefactor" of "mankind. So goes our modern political casuistry.'

M. Antoine Thomas's exploits as a cracksman were accorded the honor of a cable-message to the daily

papers' on this far-out rim of the e/trth. Some-priest or priests (it was ■ averred) had helped -him to remove objects of ecclesiastical art. A long , experience of the " methods followed by the anti-Christian party in France ' -in. their war against religio"n. has left 'us with anything but an abiding faith in "cable messages on church affairs, originating in Paris. Many of them, as our columns have from time to time shown, have been outright fabrications ;- most of the remainder were marked by reticences , or by suggested incidents or features that gave a demon's twist to the narrative and., constituted - the half-trutb that is ever the worst 06 a lie. Thiswas the case in the cable-messajge regarding the ' Thomas thieveries. ♦ The vital items that the cable message' suppressed were these: that the. obtjects* stolen by Thomas were not "in the possession nor under the : control of the priests ; and that (according to Thomas's , confession when under arrest) the^ scheme for incriminating the clergy was hatched in the Masonic lodge of which he is a member. The statements a self-con-fessed thief have, of course,' to be taken with a good ■ deal of salt. But why was one part o£ this French magsman's story— that which reflected on ecclesiastical persons— seat on "the wings of the lightning to the" ends ! of the earth, and the part of it .which" jp dinted to a Masonic plot so carefully suppressed ? The smallest - child- among our readers can answer that riddle. The whole incident is "a fresh illustration of the' manner in which some of the channels of information of the secular press have been captured by the enemies of all 'religion. - x ~ The cost in legal and military operations during the campaign of church-plunder for three months alone in 1906, 'amounted to a total of 3,506,000 (over £140,000). To -this is to be added the heavy previous cost of the inventories, of the sieges of churches, etc., and of the military expeditions to drive out nuns and religious Brothers, and the subsequent enormous'expenses of valuation and liquidation, which produced enormous profits for sets of -' grafting ' lawyers and offi- • cials. Under • every phase of the modern European - Revolution, unbelief has been intolerant of religious 'belief. It is, therefore, not strange that, under a regime ofaggressive official atheism, Christianity enjoys far less freedom in France than it does in the realms of 'the unspeakable Turk. Here, for . instance, is how Monsignor Kahmiani, . Patriarch of the Syrian Catholics in - Turkey, describes the position of his co-religionists . under * the rule of- the Mussulman :— ' Our "Government accords us full and complete lib- - erty of worship. The regirce of which w~e are subject jLs as follows : In • all the cities every Christian confession draws up a list of its adherents.. Each year these lists are published and presented to the authorities, who • verify them through Turkish functionaries. When the lists are shown to be exact — and there is nothing objectionable in the system of" verification adopted— per- - mission is given to build" a church after coaraplying with a few simple formalities. Never "has an authorisation been denied us either for the foundation , of al,a 1 , school or a Bishop's residence. In many cities processions are freely allowed to pass through the streets, and theiother manifestations of worship are also free. Thus in funerals the priest accompanies the cortege, which is always preceded by the cross. Nay, more— the' -Bishops enjoy certain distinctions and privileges. They form_part of ' the administrative council of the province and take a most important part in the elections for this council as well as in those of the Judiciary Assessors.' It is evidently more tolerable to be a Christian " under the Mahomedan Turk than under the atheistic Frank. " ■ *